Figures

Figures submitted to the Journal must be of the highest quality to ensure accuracy and clarity in the final published copy. You can supply graphics in eps, pdf, jpg, png, and tiff formats, or as native Photoshop/Illustrator files. We recommend that you refrain from using conversion tools that might decrease the quality of the figures.

We urge the author to limit the empty space in and around figures. Artwork should be in sharp focus, with clean, clear numbers and letters and with sharp black lines. Thin lines should be avoided, particularly in figures requiring considerable reduction. Authors should check whether laser-printed originals of these figures are acceptable (especially for grayscale).

The author is warned that changes in the size and arrangement of figures can made by the publisher at the production stage. Because of the bulk of the Journal, the production office will reduce most figures to fit a one-column format (88 mm). If necessary, figures may extend across the entire page width (max. 180 mm). Intermediate widths with a side caption are also possible (max. 120 mm). The illustrations should be placed at the top of the column and flush-left according to layout conventions.

If lettered parts of a figure (e.g., 1a, 1b, 1c, etc.) are referred to in the figure legend, each part of the figure should be labeled with the appropriate letter within the image area. Symbols should be explained in the caption and not in the figure. Please use lower case for any words in figures to comply with the A&A style.

See appendix \ref{app:ex-tex-fig} for examples of how figures should be coded in the TeX file.

About figures format

Depending of your preferred LaTeX engine (LaTeX or pdfLaTeX), figures should be sent as encapsulated PostScript files or in any other format as PDF, JPG, TIFF, PNG, BMP, and GIF (compatible with pdfLaTeX).

All graphics are either vector graphics or bitmap graphics. Vector figures are graphics consisting of individual, scalable objects such as lines, curves, and shapes with editable attributes, therefore you can resize a vector without loss of quality. The bitmap figures are graphics composed of dots called pixels. Because bitmaps have a fixed resolution, enlarging or reducing them produce jagged and distorted images because extra pixels are added or supressed. Some software packages leave a considerable margin around the figures. You may have to adjust the BoundingBox for EPS figures by hand with the help of ghostview, for example. The figure can also be automatically changed with the psfixbb command, which you will find in almost any LaTeX distribution.

For other formats as PDF, JPG, and bitmap formats, crop out any extra spaces around the figures and also check very carefully that the resolution is at least 250/300 dpi and not 92 dpi, as in standard screen JPG files.
The easiest way to include your figures is by using the graphicx package, which comes along with
the standard LaTeX2e distribution. See the document by Keith Reckdahl "Using Imported Graphics in LaTeX2e", which explains how to use
imported graphics in LaTeX2e documents. The Part I, Background Information provides historical
information and describes basic LaTeX2e terminology and graphic formats.